Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has warned that the planet cannot sustain humanity’s ongoing dependence on fossil fuels, insisting that without a decisive shift away from oil, gas and coal, the battle against climate change will be lost.
Speaking on Friday at a pre-COP30 summit in Belem, deep in the Brazilian Amazon, Lula said the future of energy would determine “success or failure in the battle against climate change.”
“Earth can no longer sustain the development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that has prevailed over the past 200 years,” the leftist leader told world leaders gathered ahead of next year’s UN climate talks.
The summit, attended by several heads of state and government, renewed calls for nations to accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels, the biggest source of planet-warming emissions.
Evidence of climate breakdown, they noted, has never been clearer: the decade since the Paris Agreement has been the hottest on record, bringing stronger hurricanes, longer heatwaves and more frequent wildfires.
While Brazil has pledged to pursue its own “transition away from fossil fuels”, Lula’s leadership on the issue comes just weeks after his government approved new oil drilling in the Amazon region.
In an interview earlier this week, he conceded that cutting fossil fuel use “is not easy,” but said the matter could be tackled through a “roadmap” to be developed during COP30.
That plan, aimed at ending deforestation, reducing fossil fuel dependence and securing funding to achieve these goals, was applauded at the Belem gathering.
Rwanda’s Environment Minister, Bernadette Arakwiye, told delegates they faced a stark choice: “We can continue with incremental progress while the planet burns, or we can rise to meet the scale of this crisis. The fossil fuel era is drawing to a close. We must now ensure the transition is just, inclusive and equitable.”
The absence of leaders from major polluting nations, including the United States, where President Donald Trump has dismissed climate science as a “con job”, cast a shadow over the talks but also galvanised demands for stronger collective action.
Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said his country was working with others to introduce taxes on private jets and premium-class flights, arguing, “It is only fair that those who have more and pollute more should pay their fair share.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that global investment in renewable energy reached $2 trillion in 2024, $800 billion more than investments in fossil fuels.
“The fossil fuel age is ending,” he declared in Belem, warning nonetheless that the world is still on track to overshoot the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target.
Despite these pledges, global attention to climate issues has waned amid economic strains, conflicts, and renewed pushes for fossil fuels in some nations.
Lula also criticised “pressure and threats” that led the International Maritime Organization to delay plans to curb shipping emissions and highlighted the need for alternative fuels, including ethanol.
Negotiations for a global plastics treaty, another crucial step to limit pollution from oil-based products, collapsed in August, further exposing divisions among nations.
Although a binding anti-fossil fuel agreement remains unlikely at COP30, observers say the Belem summit has set the stage for more ambitious commitments, particularly on methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.
As Lula put it, “We either face this challenge head-on, or we surrender the planet’s future.”
AFP
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